Sunday, March 26, 2017

New Democrats vying for their party's leadership will gather in Montreal on Sunday for a debate focused exclusively on issues relating to Canada's youth — a demographic that swung in large numbers from the NDP to the Liberals in the 2015 federal election.It'll include the four candidates currently in the running for the party leadership: Ontario MP Charlie Angus, Manitoba MP Niki Ashton, Quebec MP Guy Caron and B.C. MP Peter Julian.You can read the rest of this article here.

4 comments:

Angus is formidable but I don't sense he has the support. If any of these candidates could carefully tap into some Canadian civic nationalism they might have a chance at a good showing in an election. As it stands I see a spent, demoralized party that doesn't have the backbone for any of the slings and arrows that go with that.

The NDP has been in tough spots before. They are far better off than 1993 when they had only 9 M.P.s and less than 7% of the popular vote. Will they compete for Government in 2019? Probably not but, Justin sure doesn't look as inevitable for re-election as he did six months or a year ago.

At 16% in the polls they are five points above McDonough's 1997 and 8 points above her 2000 election performances, heck they're polling slightly above Jack's 2004 election outcome that reduced the Liberals to a minority Government.

It's not all good news of course, if an election were held today the NDP would probably lose half their seats but such a result would still be above average.

I think you are right the party is badly demaoralised, they have high expectations once again to win the B.C. provincial election in May, they are not polling in majority government territory, yet, it looks as if Christy Clark may still be the favourite. We'll see.

Unfortunately, the NDP has lots of repair work to do in Nova Scotia and the Atlantic in general. They were supposed to be competitive for the Newfoundland General Election last year. Instead the party fragmented tossed out their long time leader and lost four seats while the Liberals steamrolled to Government. The party doesn't exist in PEI or New Brunswick or Quebec and woefully under performed at the last Saskatchewan General Election.

Still, for all that this is a party that isn't going away anytime soon. Will they field a full slate of candidates in 2019? Of course they will. Will they be the next Government? Probably not but, if Justin is reduced to a minority, the NDP could well be the Kingmaker. So, the situation is far from hopeless even if it is less than perfect and a noticeable climb down from their 2011 high.

The federal NDP is such a loose confederation that it's hard to make any generalizations about it. In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, it is a centre-left, establishment party. in Quebec, its only organization is the caucus' personal networks and the McGill NDP Club.

Because of its ephemeral nature, the federal NDP totally depends on its leader to set the policies and tone. He/she has to build the organization in certain parts of the country from scratch, by meeting with people in their kitchens and doughnut shops, as if they were permanently in a leadership campaign. Jack Layton was very good at that, but it still took him three elections to get anywhere.

There is no magic policy formula that will attract more young voters. Above all, it needs a likeable, hard-working leader who knows how to organize grass roots. Otherwise, in at least half the country it will be stuck in "Green Party mode", where voters with little commitment will consider it as a protest vote, but abandon it when it seriously challenges for power.

Policy is set by annual or bi-annual policy conventions. This has always been the way the CCF-NDP set policy starting with the Regina Manifesto in 1933, many sections of which are still official party policy.

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